Diabetes Complications

Diabetes is a lifetime disease and poor control may lead to serious diabetes complications. It is important to keep extra good care of yourself if you have diabetes. It can affect every part of your body and you have to keep yourself healthy. You must always keep blood sugar within the target range as set by your doctor to avoid complications.

Particularly, we have to be careful about our foot, oral hygiene, skin, vision, kidney, heart and blood vessel.

Diabetic Neuropathies

Diabetic neuropathies are nerve disorders caused by diabetes. Diabetes may cause nerve damages throughout the body over time. People with diabetes can develop nerve problems anytime, but longer a person has diabetes, the higher the risk.

It is estimated that 50% of diabetes may have some forms of neuropathy. Neuropathies may lead to numbness, sometimes pain and weakness in hands, arms feet and legs. It may also cause problems in organs like digest tract, heart and sex organs.

Diabetic neuropathies can be classified as peripheral, autonomic, proximal, and focal. Each affects different parts of the body in different ways.

Peripheral neuropathy causes either pain or loss of feeling in the toes, feet, legs, hands, and arms.

Autonomic neuropathy causes changes in digestion, bowel and bladder function, sexual response, and perspiration. It can also affect the nerves that serve the heart and control blood pressure.

Proximal neuropathy causes pain in the thighs, hips, or buttocks and leads to weakness in the legs

Focal neuropathy results in the sudden weakness of one nerve, or a group of nerves, causing muscle weakness or pain. Any nerve in the body may be affected.